The Poison
by paperstorm
Summary: Part of my Deleted Scenes series. The tag for 'Monster At The End Of This Book', 4x18. Wincest.


**Contains dialogue from the episode Monster At The End Of This Book, it belongs to Eric Kripke and Julie Siege.**

**Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)**

* * *

Sam calls Chuck almost immediately after Dean's gone. Technically it isn't breaking any of the rules Dean laid out before he left, and even if it was, Sam wouldn't care. Dean barking orders in his big-brother-voice doesn't actually mean Sam has to follow them. Dean's an idiot if he hasn't figured that out by now. It's maybe a half hour before Chuck shows up, and Sam just paces nervously and waits for him. Practically every time Sam has a conversation with his brother lately, Dean's saying something else that doesn't make any sense. They know Lilith is coming. She doesn't _know_ they know it. It's the perfect opportunity to ambush her, to finish this once and for all, and Dean doesn't want to? Sometimes Sam feels like the person who went to Hell almost a year ago isn't the same guy as the one Castiel brought back. He's still Dean; he still looks like Dean and sounds like Dean and feels like Dean, but Sam doesn't _know_ this Dean. The idea that Dean would rather run away than charge into a fight with guns blazing is so foreign to Sam it's scary.

Also, it's been too long since he's seen Ruby. It comes in waves, but right now he can't stop his fingers from shaking.

Sam all-but runs to the door when the sound of a fist bangs against the wood, relieved that it's Chuck standing there and not Girl Scouts or something.

"You wanted to see me?" Chuck asks, looking up at Sam with tired eyes. Sam feels for him. The way this poor guy's spent the last few years of his life sounds almost as crappy as Sam's.

"Yeah." He stands back to let Chuck in. "Thanks for coming."

"Yeah, sure."

Sam crosses his arms and fidgets a little. To nearly everyone Sam's ever met in his life, he was a complete stranger. Even people like Jessica who _thought_ they knew him. It's weird and unsettling to be confronted with a person who very well might know everything about Sam. "Um. I was just wondering how much you know. About me."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you seen visions of me … when I'm not with Dean?"

"Oh." Chuck nods. "You want to know if I know about the demon blood."

It's what Sam was expecting, but the words make his temperature drop and his heart race. Hearing them said out loud makes it all so _real_. "You didn't tell Dean?"

"I didn't even write it into the books. I was afraid it would make you look unsympathetic."

"Unsympathetic?" Sam repeats, suddenly offended even though he knows Chuck's probably right about that. No one understands. Sam isn't doing all this because he wants to. It's because he has to. He hates himself for it, but it's the only way.

"Yeah, come on, Sam. I mean, sucking blood? You gotta know that's wrong."

Sam sighs and looks away from Chuck. He wanders over to the stupidly fancy table and sits down. "It scares the hell outta me, man. I mean, I feel it inside of me, I … I wish to God I could stop."

"But you keep going back," Chuck says quietly.

"What choice have I got?" Sam reasons, wanting to convince himself more than anything. "If it helps me kill Lilith and stop the apocalypse – "

"I thought that was Dean's job," Chuck interrupts. "That's what the angels say, right?"

"Dean's not …" Sam exhales heavily, hating the words that are about to come out of his mouth because he wishes like crazy they weren't true. "He's not _Dean_ lately. Ever since he got outta Hell. He needs help."

"So you gotta carry the weight?"

"Well, he's looked out for me my whole life. I can't return the favor?"

"Yeah, sure you can," Chuck answers with a shrug. He sits down across from Sam. "I mean, if that's what this is."

"What else would it be?"

"I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger? More in control?"

Sam's jaw clenches and a pulse of energy surges through his veins. That happens lately, when he gets mad. "No. That's not true."

"I'm sorry, Sam," Chuck says. He looks like he really means it. "I know it's a terrible burden, feeling that it all rests on your shoulders."

"Does it? All rest on my shoulders?"

"That seems to be where the story's headed."

Sam was expecting that too, but it's still hard to hear. "Am I strong enough to stop Lilith tonight?"

"I don't know," Chuck answers regretfully. "I haven't seen that far yet."

Sam nods shortly and looks away. Suddenly, he wishes Dean hadn't left.

"I'm sorry," Chuck offers again, but Sam shakes his head.

"No, it … it's not your fault. I just don't know what to do."

"What does Dean think?"

Sam presses his lips together and leans onto his elbows on the table. "Dean doesn't know what to think. He's pretending he does, but he … that's why I'm here. He's got us doing the opposite of everything you wrote, like that'll stop her from coming."

"You think that'll work?"

"I don't know."

"I wish I could help. I still can't believe the two of you are still walking around, after everything that's happened. Most people would be total waste-cases, man. White pajamas, padded cells, the works. You guys are freakin' superheros."

Sam huffs humorlessly. "Not quite."

"Close enough." Chucks eyes are wide and honest when Sam looks up at him. "When I first submitted the books to a bunch of different publishers? Most of them turned 'em down because they said it wasn't realistic for any human to be able to handle that much. Monsters and your parents dying and your psychic thing, all of it. But you guys did handle it, you _are_. That's crazy."

"Can I … um." Sam scratches the back of his neck and squirms uncomfortably inside. He's not really sure he even wants to know the answer to the question that itches at the back of his skull, but he needs to. "Can I ask what else you know? That you … didn't write down?"

Chuck frowns. "About you?"

Sam shifts in the chair. It feels like there are spiders underneath his skin, and not because of the blood anymore. "About both of us. Like … private stuff."

"Oh." Chuck looks down at his hands. "That."

Sam sighs. That's what he was afraid of. "So you know."

"Yeah. I know."

"How come you didn't put it in the books?"

"Because you're brothers," Chuck says, like Sam's stupid for not figuring that out on his own. "I just didn't think it would make for very good literature."

Sam goes over those words a few times in his head and then he laughs, because it's the only thing he can do. The whole situation is so ridiculous, so removed from any kind of reality, that Sam can't even wrap his head around it. "Good literature. Right. Well, yeah. I guess that makes sense."

"Look, Sam," Chuck begins. He sounds as uncomfortable as Sam feels. "I've seen everything, okay? I just started writing about it when Dean came to get you from Stanford, but I've seen it all. You and Dean, I saw how it happened, how it started. John was a good man, but he wasn't a very good father. He left the two of you alone, for weeks sometimes, in a place you'd never been before. And he'd come back for a day or two and then take off again. You went to a new school every couple of months, you never had ties to anyone but each other."

"Yeah," Sam mumbles, staring at his hands. It's all true, and Sam made his peace with it a long time ago, but that doesn't mean he's okay with an almost complete stranger knowing about it.

"Two kids, alone in the world except for each other, no friends, no real family. And I mean, it's not like you could have any kind of normal relationship with anyone else. Like, what, would you take some girl on the road with you? Cart her around in the backseat so you could have someone to sleep with at the end of a hunt? With your brother in the next bed?"

Sam laughs again, but awkwardly. "I guess not."

"I don't know. I just see these things, I don't really have opinions about them. I can't exactly say I enjoyed that part of it. Of the visions."

"Yeah," Sam mutters, his face heating up. The idea of Chuck _watching_ them every time they've … it's horrifying. There's a part of Sam that never wants to do it again just on principle. "Fuck. I'm sorry, this whole thing is ..."

"For you too, I bet."

"Completely," Sam agrees through gritted teeth.

Chuck nods and stares down at the table. "I guess what I'm saying, is that what you and Dean have … it's definitely weird. But maybe understandable."

"So then why didn't you ever write it down?"

"Dude," Chuck says, giving Sam a meaningful look. "You guys do it kind of a lot. I wanted to write novels, not porn."

* * *

"So, deal, huh?" Dean asks, after Sam gives him the short version of his conversation with Lilith.

"That's what she said." Sam's heart is still racing and the blood – his and Ruby's – is coursing like rushing rapids through his veins. He's unbelievably irritated that Dean barged in with Chuck and made Lilith take off. Sam had her. She was right there, under his hands, and he could've taken her. Her powers wouldn't work on him, and there's no way that dental hygienist she was wearing was stronger than him. If Dean had given him an extra five minutes, Sam would have wrestled the knife back from her bony hands and ended the whole thing. Instead, Dean did what he always does. He took over, and he screwed everything up.

"Call the whole thing off? Angels, seals, Lucifer rising, the whole nine?"

"That's the gist of it."

"Huh."

Sam looks over at him. "What?"

"You didn't think once about taking it?" Dean asks, and Sam can't believe his own ears.

"Are you kidding me? You just spent all day trying to talk me _off_ the Lilith track!"

"I'm just saying."

Sam looks away from him. "She'd have found some way to weasel out of it. And all it would've cost us was our lives."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Anyway, that's not the point," Sam continues.

"What's the point?"

"The point is, she's scared. I could see it." Sam can't help smiling to himself a little. Today was a mess, but something good definitely came out of it. "Lilith is running."

"Running from what?"

"Don't know. But she was telling the truth about one thing."

"What's that?"

"She's not gonna survive the apocalypse. I'll make sure of that."

Dean looks at him like he's terrified, but Sam ignores him. The fact that he's freaked out just proves everything Sam's been thinking about his brother lately. Dean _isn't_ strong enough for this. The angels are wrong, this is Sam's mission. Seeing Lilith again re-lit the flame inside him. That bitch is the reason his brother spent forty years in Hell. She's the reason Sam broke so completely he'll probably never be whole again. Sam is going to tear her apart if it's the last thing he does.

"Why didn't you kill her tonight, then?" Dean says after a few long moments of tense silence.

"I was about to, before you walked in with the cavalry."

"Really? 'Cause it looked to me like she was the one holding the knife. I meant with your psychic stuff."

Sam's jaw clenches and he stares out the window. "Couldn't. Not strong enough yet."

"Oh, well that's good to know," Dean mutters sarcastically. "In that case, you're welcome for saving your life."

Sam doesn't answer.

"Tell me how you're getting stronger," Dean says, and it sounds just enough like a command to piss Sam off even more. "When you and Ruby sneak off together. You're doing, what, brain push-ups? Bending spoons?"

"I can't explain it to you," Sam says quietly, trying to keep his temper under control.

"Yeah, because you know it doesn't make any god-damn sense! Shouldn't you be working with another psychic if you're trying to go all Mindbender? What the hell does a demon know about that stuff?"

"Just because she can't do it herself doesn't mean she can't gather intel. I don't know how to pole-vault but that doesn't mean I couldn't figure out how it's done."

"So, she's talking to other psychics?" Dean pushes, and Sam shakes his head.

"I just … I need you to trust me."

"I don't know if I can."

Sam glares. "Why? All my life, you've just expected me to tag along behind you, to follow your lead, because you're my brother. You wanted me to trust you, to believe that you know what's best. I am asking you for a _little_ leeway, here, Dean. I'm asking you to give me the benefit of the doubt that I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Cas doesn't seem to think so."

"Well maybe Cas doesn't know shit."

Dean makes a noise like he's about to say something else and then he sighs and falls silent for the rest of the drive.

The motel room Dean eventually finds them is rundown and stained and grayer than Sam's mood. Dean doesn't talk to him as they unload the bags and settle into their temporary home, and Sam's okay with that. He doesn't know what he'd say anyway. He wants to tell Dean the truth more than anything, but he can't. Dean would just try to talk him out of it, like Pamela and Chuck did, and when Dean tries to reason with people he tends to use tactics more convincing than words. Sam knows it's crazy, and dangerous, and could end up going south so damn easily. But he still needs to try. Even if there's a one-in-a-million chance that Ruby's plan will work, Sam has to take it. Lilith deserves to be turned to dust, and most of all, _Dean_ deserves that. Sam's doing this for _him_. That's why he can't tell him.

"So, do you think Chuck knows?" Dean asks slowly, after maybe an hour without saying a word to Sam. "About us?"

Sam cringes to himself at the memory of the conversation. "Probably," he says, definitely not going to tell Dean he asked and knows for sure. He sits down on the edge of one of the beds and shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it across the room to the dresser. "He seemed to know everything else."

"Was it in some of the books?" Dean asks, like it's the worst thing he can think of.

"I don't think so," Sam lies. "I didn't read them all, though, so I guess it could be."

"That … there aren't words for how awkward that is," Dean pronounces, rubbing his hands over his face. "We can never see him again. I mean it. Ever."

"Yeah." Sam stares down at his hands and takes a deep breath. The adrenaline from being face to face with Lilith has worn off and he's starting to feel like maybe he was a bit of a dick to Dean earlier. Even though Dean's still stubborn and annoying and it drives Sam crazy how little Dean trusts him. "Are you mad at me?"

Dean frowns at him for a moment like he wasn't expecting the question, and then his face falls a little and he sits down beside Sam, sighing heavily. "No. M'worried about you."

"Why?"

"'Cause you're different lately."

"So are you," Sam points out.

Dean sighs again. "Yeah. I know."

"So where do we go from here?"

Dean shakes his head. He leans over and rests his elbows on his knees, dropping his face into his hands. "I don't know. I need you to be safe, Sammy. And it scares me when it seems like you don't care if this fight with Lilith kills you too."

"You went to Hell for me, Dean. You can't do that and then get mad at me for being self-sacrificing. We're Winchesters, it's kind of what we do."

For a while Dean doesn't answer, and then he just sighs again and mumbles, "God, we're fucked up."

"It was really, really hard for me when you were gone," Sam tells him softly, his chest tightening like it always does at the memories.

Dean sits up and looks at Sam briefly with shiny eyes. "M'sorry."

"No." Sam shakes his head. "I don't need you to be sorry. I just need you to understand why I have to do this."

"I'm trying to. I really am, I just …" He trails off and Sam doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't know what to do with any of it, so he takes a page out of Dean's book and changes the subject.

"How bad-touched does it make you feel that there are people out there who think about us having sex?"

Dean groans and laughs at the same time. "Man, did you see that website? They don't just think about it. They talk about it and write porny stories about it and _draw it._ I mean, the guys didn't really look like us but they were supposed to _be_ us. It's burned into my brain."

Sam laughs too, even though it really, really isn't funny. "I guess we should take it as a compliment."

"It's a fucking nightmare," Dean grumbles, and Sam can't help but agree with him on that.

He stands up and takes a few steps away because he doesn't know what else to say. Dean stands up too, and suddenly Sam's hyper-aware of exactly how far apart they are right now. It's almost worse than when Dean was gone. But Ruby's right. As soon as Lilith is dead, things will go back to normal. Their pain is her fault, so once she's gone everything will be okay again. Sam's more determined than ever to see this plan through right to the end, no matter what. He wants Dean back, and this is the only way.

"Hey, Sammy?"

Sam turns around to face his brother, and hates the sadness and helplessness he sees on Dean's face. "Yeah?"

"I get that I can't stop you from doin' what you're gonna do. Just … promise me you'll be careful, okay? Please?" Dean's voice is soft and honest and when Sam looks at him, his eyes are wet again and it makes Sam's heart hurt.

He goes over to his brother and pulls him into a kiss that tastes more like hopelessness than anything else. Dean slides his arms around Sam's neck and clings to him, kissing him back desperately, like a dying man fighting to hold onto his last breath. In more ways that one. "I promise."


End file.
